Orthogonal Space Time Codes (OSTC) are commonly used in Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) communication schemes. In MIMO systems the orthogonality of OSTC codes permits full diversity along with relatively simple decoding at the receiver. While OSTC codes exhibit orthogonality for any number of transmitting antennas, the code rate, that is, the ratio between the number of symbols transmitted in each codeword and the number of time slots needed to complete the codeword transmission, decreases as a function of increasing numbers of transmit antennas.